Sunset's Promise
by Wolfloner2004
Summary: The Sequal to 'BraveHeart'. It continues the story, 12 years after the first one had ended.


CHAPTER ONE: Old and New

Although she was awake, she hadn't opened her eyes yet. She was trying to figure out what the smell that filled her senses was. It spelled oddly of fish and dog food. Finally giving up she opened her eyes, only to jump back, biting back a yelp. It took her a few more moments to realize that it was her guardian's cat that stood over her.

Ivi Miyato laid back on her futon, unwilling to get up. Her parents had passed away several years ago, but she was still only now getting used to living with their friend.

A soft knock shook her door. She glared at it, daring the person on the other side to attempt to disturb her rest. "Ivi, you need to get up." The voice called.

She continued glaring at the door, refusing to acknowledge the command.

"Ivi! Must we go through this every morning?" The voice sounded annoyed.

"Only till you tell me what's in the egg!" She was referring to the dark grey and purple egg that was carefully balanced on the table in the living room.

"It doesn't concern you." Simon finally gave up, and opened the door himself, his annoyed charge be damned. "Now get up, and get ready for school."

Ivi's face softened and she nodded. "Yes sir." She stood and gently nudged him out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Quickly changing into her school uniform, which consisted of a knee-length brown skirt, a light grey vest, with a brown undershirt, she trotted from her room, down the hall, and into the living room. She eyed the egg again. It was far larger than any bird egg she'd ever seen. And it reminded her of something, although for the life of her she couldn't recognize what it might be.

"I'm never going to tell you what the egg is, you know." Her guardian, as well as her teacher, stood in the doorway.

Ivi nodded. "I know, but it's always worth a shot." She walked past him, and grabbed her school supplies from the table, and shoved them haphazardly into her bag. "I'm heading to school. Alys has something she just _has_ to show me." At the doorway she turned and bowed slightly towards him. "Yoi ichinichi o" She smiled and raced from the house.

Simon watched her leave the house, then turned back to the egg. "Agnemon…" He sat on the couch, and carefully pulled the egg into his lap. It had been 12 years since he had last seen his digimon in any form but this. Though having finally given up on the idea of his digimon ever hatching, he still took care of the egg, keeping it clean, and as warm as possible.

He sat there quietly for several minutes, holding the egg close to him, going through memories of their time together. Passing through as many as he could remember. Both the good and the bad, his time as Blitzkrieg, and his time as just one of the chosen children.

A faint beeping began to reach his ears, and he turned his head slowly towards his watch. He snorted at the watch, realizing he was late. He gave the egg a last small hug, and replaced it back on the table.

Standing quickly, he quickly gathered his things and ran out the door. He was thankful the school was so close by. He hoped his students wouldn't take his tardiness as a good excuse to leave early.

While running out of the house, he only barely caught site of the moving van that was pulling into the driveway of the house next door.

But one of the boys in the van noticed him. A 16-year-old Maximillon Hartly slid out of the van, and, noticing his digivice was beeping like crazy, pulled it from his pocket. He glanced up to watch Simon run down the sidewalk, and was slightly amused by the fact that the small red dot that was blinking on the screen followed the man's movements.

Max watched the retreating figure carefully, and for a moment he seemed to change. Clad in red and yellow, the figure seemed painfully familiar. But after a moment it's clothing reverted back to the light brown suit.

"Put that thing away." Max glanced over at his older brother. Ash, now 18, had changed a lot in the last 12 years, though anyone would have. He was currently wearing large, baggy black pants that just barely hung around his hips, and a shirt for a Japanese band that Max avoided listening to as much as he could. The heavy base and coarse lyrics made him cringe. His hair was still a dark black, though now it sported bright blue high-lights, and was currently a length that made their mother look like she wanted to cry any time he came into the room.

Max glanced down at his own attire. Nice fitting forest green pants and a lighter green button up shirt. His own brown hair barely fell past his ears, and he kept it neatly combed and parted. He wondered what passing neighbors might think of the two of them standing side by side.

"Why should I?" He challenged quietly, tightening his grip on his digivice. He knew why. Ash hated anything to do with digimon now. They had physically fought over whether or not to bring the digitamas with them.

Thankfully their Mother stepped in, and had carefully packed up the eggs. Ash had been winning the fight.

The family had moved to the United States from London due to a job transfer of their father's. While they didn't mind moving so much, they did mind that they would not have to share a room. On the other side of that coin however, they both were allowed to keep their computers. Max was especially grateful for this as he had been forced to work three different jobs to pay his parents back for said computer. But if they had had to get rid of one, it would have been his.

Ash growled softly and took a step towards his younger brother. Max quickly shoved the digivice deep into his pocket, and tugged a bag from the floor boards from the car and ran into his new house.

Ivi walked into her homeroom class, a vaguely annoyed look on her face. Her eyes quickly scanned the room until they fell on her friend, Alys. The blonde haired, bright eyed girl seemed to be radiating with excitement.

She sat down in the back of the room, next to her eccentric friend. She reached down and quickly straightened out her skirt, to keep her male peers from getting any ideas. "Now, Alys, what on this green Earth is so important?"

"Nothing." She grinned, at her friend's confused look. "But look at this." She carefully unzipped the her bag, opening it just enough to let light fall on the object inside.

To Ivi it appeared to be a large pearl, with thing golden veins covering it. "What is it?"

"A digimon egg." She hissed quietly, shaking with barely controlled enthusiasm. "A real, live digimon egg." She continued speaking quietly, more to herself than to Ivi, which was fine since Ivi was no longer paying attention.

Her mind had returned back to the dark grey egg, with the deep purple veins webbing across it. _He's a chosen child?_ She closed her eyes thinking back twelve years before. She remembered looking out through her window and watched as the large grey creature fought against the vampire-like digimon.

In her memories she turned her head a little bit, and she realized she'd only caught a glimpse of his partner, and the vibrant red hair stood out against everything else.

"Atchaa!" She stood up quickly, realization sweeping over her. She strode to the front of the room, Alys watching her confused, and picked up a black marker. She drew a large rough egg on the board, then an equal sign. To the right of these two drawings she drew a rough sketch of Agnemon. Capping the marker she turned and silently returned to her seat, waiting for her teacher/guardian to enter the classroom.

Confused murmurs filled the room. It was nearly ten minutes before their teacher came into the room. "I'm sorry for being late. Traffic held me up." He flashed an apologetic smile towards his class before his eyes fell on the board. "What?"

He turned quickly to face the class again, his eyes falling on Ivi. "Who did this?"

"Well, is it?" Ivi asked, sitting up straight in her chair, her dark brown eyes met his silver ones.

"Miss Miyato, would you be so kind as to stay after class today?" He asked as he turned, and began erasing the board.

"My apologies, _sensei_, I need to get _home_ early today."

Simon opened his mouth then sighed, admitting defeat. "Fine, stay tomorrow. No excuses." He turned to the rest of the class. "The rest of you, turn to page 143 in your textbooks."

Alys gave her friend a strange look. Only Ivi and their teacher knew what had just happened. "Why do you have to go home early today?"

Ivi giggled at her friend, and shook her head. "Don't worry about it."

"If what the two of you are discussing is more important than this class, would you _please_ take the conversation outside?"

Alys swallowed. "Sorry, Sensei…"

Ivi stood up, and grabbed her bag. "I think I'll just head home." And with that she stalked from the classroom, leaving her confused and amazed peers behind her.

She shoved her hands into the pockets of her skirt as she walked down the sidewalk. She kicked a few small stones down the white thinly paved 'road'.

"Why not jus tell me it was a digimon egg?" She glared down at the sidewalk. "Why was it so damned important that I not know?"

"Ivi!" She turned to see Simon running after her.

"Shouldn't you be doing teacher-y things?" she asked, once he had caught up with her.

"Should? Yes, probably. But I figured this was more important."

"It could have waited."

"Maybe…"

Ivi rounded on him. He was a good head taller than she was, so she had to stare upwards towards him. "Why didn't you ever tell me? And why are you so pissed off that I found out?"

He paused for a moment, then sighed. "Look… things between my digimon and I… weren't that great."

"So? What kind of an excuse is that?"

"It isn't one. I just… didn't want you to know."

Ivi stared at him. "When you come up with a better reason, let me know." She turned and strode down the street.

"You know, you're still in trouble for just leaving class like that!"

Ivi snorted and waved back at him. "I know."

They were nearing their house now. Simon had, apparently, gotten someone to cover his class for the time being, and was now free to keep an eye on his young charge.

They saw an older boy, with long black hair, and loose clothes, pulling a box from the U-haul in their driveway.

"Why is thing so light?" He looked down at the large box and carried it to the grass. He pulled a pocket knife from his pocket, and slit open the box. "No…" he had clenched his fists, and he looked angry.

Ivi took a step towards him, but before she could do more he had reached into the box, and stood up, holding a large egg. It was a deep orange color, with light green veins crisscrossing over it.

"Digitama…" Ivi breathed. They seemed to be everywhere today.

"Stop is, Ash!" Ivi was brought back to reality, and noticed that Ash looked like he was ready to throw the egg to the ground-killing whatever was inside it. A younger looking boy, certainly less rough looking, was running towards him. His short brown hair fluttered in the wind.

Ash raised his arms higher, and tensed his muscles. "Why are these here?" He growled, challenging the younger boy.

"I couldn't just… leave them." Max couldn't meet his brother's eyes. "I know you hate them… but I couldn't just leave them there.

"The hell you couldn't!" He brought his arms down. In the next few seconds Max and rammed himself into this brother, knocking the egg free. Instinctually Ivi ran foreword and caught the egg in her arms, although she had to turn and land painfully on the sidewalk to do so.

The two brothers turned to look at her. She wrapped her arms protectively around the egg. "I won't let you hurt this digimon!" she glared at Ash.

"Ivi! Are you alright?" Simon came towards her, but stopped when the egg seemed to be glowing brightly. Small cracks formed, that allowed the light to shine through, nearly blinding the young girl who was holding it.

"Ivi?" Max asked himself quietly, watching the small lightshow.

As soon as the light had touched Ivi's right arm she let out a scream of pain, and tried to release the egg. But she found she could barely more, and instead could only watch dark red tendrils of energy seep over her arm. It felt like it was eating away at her flesh.

Then, for an instant, she changed. Her right arm became skeletal, the rest of her body covered with light grey fur. Two large wings had appeared on her back, but she took little notice of any of this. Her eyes were now on the yellow creature that was floating in the beam of light.

The light dimmed and everything else stopped. The creature fell to the pavement in a small heap, the pain in her arm disappeared, and she resumed her normal form.

"Thank you… for saving me." The yellow creature stood and stretched. She was fox-like in appearance, but with two thin jackal-like tails flowing behind her. Small markings changed to appearance of her fur above and below her eyes. And on her hind legs was something that vaguely resembled a yen-yang sign, only the entire thing was purple.

"Are you… a digimon?"

Max came over quietly and knelt down next to Ivi, but was staring at the small digimon.

"Arumon?"

"Who?" The digimon had a quiet, solemn sounding voice. "My name is Kiitsumon." Her tails wagged when Ivi reached out to scratch behind her ear.

"I'm Ivi… Ivi Miyato. Nice to meet you, Kiitsumon…"

Max stared at the young Japanese girl, seeming to size her up. Without another word he stood, strode over to the box that held three other digitamas. Ignoring the angry words coming from his older brother, he carefully took his older sister's digivice, tracing her insignia. He walked back over to the girl, and held out his hand. "Take it." He forced a thin smile, but his eyes echoed the pain in his eyes.

She looked down at the small device. "Thank you…" She gave him a confused look. Max nodded and turned. He walked over to the box, and picked it up.

"Leave the eggs alone, Ash." He held the box close to him, and walked into the house.

Ivi looked from the small grey device in her hand, studying the purple engraving on what appeared to be the screen of it. She glanced over to her arm, burn marks covered it, and then her eyes fell on the yellow digimon infront of her. "Are you mine?"

"I guess so?" She cocked her head at the human.

They both looked over Ivi's shoulder at the sounds of footsteps. "Ivi… let's go home now…" Simon looked down at the digimon, but wouldn't meet either pair of eyes.

"You." Ivi's head snapped back to her side, the long-haired boy was now standing over her. His hand was clenched in a fist. "Keep your stupid creature the fu-"

"Shut up, Ashteroth. Bakumon would be ashamed to call you his partner." Simon hadn't moved very far from Ivi's side, and was now glaring at the young man.

Ash's eyes narrowed. "Like you're one to talk." He turned and grabbed a random box from the U-Haul and walked into his new home.

"Simon…"

Ivi was cut off. "Get inside." She followed her guardian back into their house, Kiitsumon, still confused, followed behind her.

"Master… I'm hungry." Ivi picked up her digimon once they were inside.

"Oh… what do digimon eat?" When her digimon shrugged, she turned and looked questioningly to Simon.

"Pretty much anything, I guess." Ivi nodded and took the young creature into the kitchen to find something for her to eat.

Simon walked into the living room, and sat down on the couch. He stared at his digimon's egg. "Does this mean you're never going to hatch for me again, Agnemon?" he ran his fingertips over the smooth surface of the egg.

He carefully lifted the egg, and leaned back into the couch, gently cradling the egg in his arms. "I remember when you first evolved to Hidemon." He was talking more to himself than the egg, and didn't noticed when Ivi and Kiitsumon came in and sat down on the floor on the other side of the table. Kiitsumon busily ate some re-heated chilli.

"How old was I?" He asked the egg, although he didn't expect an answer. "Four or five, I guess…" He closed his eyes. "I remember I'd only met you about a week before hand. And we were going for a walk in the woods and you fell into the water…"

Ivi didn't hear much else of her teacher's reminiscing. She was focusing on two small digimon sitting outside the window. Both reminded her of Culumon. The smaller of the two had red feet, paws, and ear tips. The larger one was green where the first was red. She then noticed that one of the red ones right eye was blue, and it's left brown. She studied the green one's eyes briefly and noticed the eyes were mirrored. Also, the red one had a small green jewel on in the middle of it's forehead, and the green one head a red jewel.

She caught bits of their conversation: _'hatched without us.' 'blackmadoumon' 'is it time then?'_

"Time for what?" She whispered. This got Kiitsumon's attention, and the two watched the small digimon outside the window. The red one smiled and waved at them. Green and red paws met and the jewels on their foreheads glowed brightly.

"Master!" Kiitsumon hissed, and pointed towards the egg Simon was holding.

"And when I found you again you were crying like your best friend had died." A small grey creature, with a while skull on his head sat where Simon had been holding the egg. Two small red wings sprouted from his back. He had an innocent smile on his face.

"Hidemon!" said digimon's partner tightened his grip on his digimon, pulling him into a tight hug. "I thought for sure I'd never see you again…"

"M-master…" Hidemon coughed out, his breathing being restricted by the other's hug.

Simon held his digimon away from him for a moment, his eyes held a tint of fear. "Don't." The same fear was reflected in his voice, along with a thin layer of authority: something Ivi rarely heard from the laid-back teacher. "Don't every call me that again. We're friends. Equals."

Hidemon seemed ready to jump from the human's hands, and shield himself. "S…sorry… I won't."

"No… Hidemon… I'm sorry…"

Ivi and Kiitsumon looked at each other, utter confusion showing on both of their faces. "Um… they…" Ivi pointed out the window towards the small digimon, but they were gone.

"They?" Simon looked away from his digimon, towards the other two.

"Um… nevermind. I must have imagined it."

Caramon, the red digimon, and Cricrimon, the green digimon, fluttered on their wings from their backyard, into a neighboring one. They peered through a window, to see Max sitting in what would be his bedroom with the box of eggs. He lifted of a dark blue one, with thin white markings covering it.

"Hey, V-chan… can you hear me? I'd really like it if I could see you again…" He sighed. Caramon noted how little the boy had really changed in 12 years.

"We should let him see his digimon again." Caramon whispered to her elder.

"But V-mon is dead now, Cricri." Cricrimon nodded. "But I think he should remain a chosen child."

"Will he accept his digimon's new form?"

"We'll see, Cricri!" The green digimon grasped the younger's paws, holding them tightly, as their foreheads glowed.

Max yelped as small cracks broke over the egg. For a moment he saw V-mon's form in the light, grinning at him, before a small snake-like creature fell from the egg and landed on the floor. It had two small lightning bolt shaped ears, and feathery wings.

"What the heck?" Max stared at the small digimon, stretched out straight, it was barely the size of his lower arm. "Who are you?"

The digimon looked up at him. "Who are you?"

"I… I asked you first."

"I asked first, I asked first!" The digimon giggled and fluttered around the room.

Caramon gapped at the small snake digimon. "Wha?"

Cricrimon laughed quietly. "It's because of his data… perhaps we should help him some?" Cricrimon's gem glowed again, and the small snake-like digimon landed coiled up in Max's hand.

Max stared as the small digimon seemed to absorb some of his data. "I'm sorry, Max." The digimon bowed a little. "My name is Eelmon."

"But… you aren't V-mon?" Max asked, his disappointment was obvious, and it stung at Eelmon for a moment.

"I… I'm not sure. The name sounds familiar though. Maybe I am!"

"V-mon was male though…"

Eelmon seemed to think this over for a moment. "Well then… I don't know what to tell you." Her ears fell. "Please… give me a chance!" Max looked down at her pleading yellow eyes.

"Of course." He ran a finger over her smooth scales.

Caramon sighed. She had been afraid that Cricrimon had given the small digimon to much information at first.

The two fluttered to the wall, and climbed the rocky surface. The moved to another room on the second floor. Ash sat quietly against a wall. They noticed it was empty.

"Stupid little bitch, taking Ivi's egg away…" He crossed his arms and sprawled out on the floor. "Who does she think she is?"

The two digimon frowned. "Go, Caramon. You know what to do." Caramon nodded and fluttered back down to the first room. Her gem glowing brightly, she nudged a third egg from the box. Max was to occupied talking with Eelmon to noticed it floating away.

It was several minutes before the younger digimon had made it back to the window ledge that Cricrimon was sitting on. The two watched as a pure forest green egg rolled into the room, and came to a stop at Ash's feet.

The young man bolted to his feet. He glared down at the egg, and was about to kick it into the wall when it began to glow. Only moments later a digimon stood in its place. He had long purple ears, and short purple fur. His face was covered with shorter white fur, and a green bandana was tied around his neck. A light blue shaded smiley face seemed to be tattooed onto his stomach, and large red eyes watched his new partner.

"What the hell are you?" Ash asked harshly.

"My name is Impmon, sir." He stood up straight, pride filled his voice. "And I'm your digimon partner." A steel-toed boot connected with his ribs as he was kicked into the wall.

"I don't want a digimon. Find someone else." The raven-haired boy walked towards the door.

"Night of Fire!" He held up two fingers. A red ball of fire formed over the first finger, and a blue ball of fire formed over the second finger. He hurled them both past the human. "It doesn't work that way."

Ash turned swiftly, and he didn't have time to completely remove the shock from his face. "Did you just attack me?"

"No, I just threw fire at you." The digimon smirked.

Ash narrowed his eyes at the digimon. "You have guts. Fine, call it a 'trial run'. You have a week to impress me." He turned again and walked down the hallway.

Cricrimon smiled slightly, both at the scene he had just witnessed and at his associate's shock.

"I keep seeing stupid digimon. First it was Wormmon, then Agnemon, and now this Impmon. Why do these digimon stay with those sorry excuses for partners?"

"Perhaps what you should be asking… is why they were partnered to begin with." Cricrimon nodded to the confused red digimon, then jumped from the windowsill. "Let's go back home, Caramon."

In a remote corner of the digital world a small child was filled with pain. Short red hair whipped around in the wind as energy was being forced into his body. His screams filled the air, but no one came to his rescue.


End file.
